News and the Netizen

[alixtii]

I had a discussion a few days ago about how often Internet users used the 'net for news. Statistics were put out; what percentage of people went to news websites at least twice a week, or something of the sort. As someone who does not currently read the newspaper or watch the TV news, I thought about my own news consumption. I don't regularly visit

Comments

[tarimanveri]

Ah, I was going to get around to mentioning the whole Eliot Spitzer thing, I swear. With similar reminiscences about how he was our commencement speaker and it sucked, as much of it as I remember. I'm pretty sure I was busy putting on my poncho at the time and not paying attention.

But yes, I'd say that general internet surfing keeps me better-informed than simply reading the news, actually. I check CBC.ca to keep up on things at home, but when non-Canadian news-related things come up, I can generally at least respond to them with a "well yes, I did read about that somewhere on the internet, tell me more?"

(Edited to make it make sense)

[peasant_]

I find that when something like a disaster has happened I will generally see it on my flist before I hear the news or read the paper. Political news is very unlikely to be reported by my flist except for when a politician does something truly crass and then it will probably be a day or two after the event, and the general run of the mill day to day stuff isn't mentioned at all. For most things I rely on the newspaper. If I want more depth to a story I will use the BBC website because they provide excellent links and overviews.